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One civilian killed, six injured in Jerusalem attacks

Jerusalem, Aug 4 IANS | 7 months ago

An Israeli youth was killed and six others wounded in two Palestinian attacks in Jerusalem Monday, where tensions have been high over the past six weeks after a new wave of violence broke out between Israelis and Palestinians.

A 25-year-old unnamed pedestrian died when a Palestinian driving a bulldozer ran over him and then rammed a passenger bus and overturned it in downtown Jerusalem, before being shot dead by three security guards in the area, Efe reported citing Jerusalem police chief Yosi Pariente as saying.

The Israeli youth was seriously injured and later died in a hospital, while the bus driver, three passengers and one of the security guards were injured.

The attacker was identified as Muhammad Naif Yabis, from the Palestinian village of Yabel Mukabar, in east Jerusalem.

In the other attack, a 20-year-old Israeli soldier was seriously wounded when he was shot by an man riding a motorcycle near the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, in the eastern part of the city.

The attacker fled towards the Palestinian neighbourhood of Wadi Jozz and was later arrested.

The attacks came during a seven-hour truce declared by Israel in the Palestinian Gaza Strip, where more than 1,800 people, mostly civilians, have been killed and more than 9,500 have been injured in a nearly month-long Israeli offensive.

Israeli Operation Protective Edge was launched July 8 to stop Palestinian rocket attacks on Israel following the murder of a Palestinian youth who was kidnapped and burnt to death.

The youth was the victim of a revenge killing after the discovery in the West Bank of the bodies of three Israeli teenagers who had been kidnapped June 12 and whose deaths were blamed on the Islamic Palestinian movement Hamas, which controls Gaza.